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Thursday, September 05, 2013

My ninth Whipped column for Ad Lib

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

The intern was so excited she could hardly get the news out. One backbencher flatly refused to believe me when I phoned. A second fainted out of relief.

Because it’s true: the Chief Whip has gone to Africa.

As I sit with my feet up on his desk, the Chief Whip is in Cameroon working for a group called ALL – Aide Legale Libre. With the help of my Collins pocket French dictionary I had already worked out what that means, and then I found a post on the blog Liberal Democrat Voice.

It quotes ALL:

Despite the lack of access to information, the legal system in Cameroon is very much alive; people can be pulled into legal proceedings … at any time.

You might think that is just the sort of arrangement the Chief Whip would favour, but read on:

The expense of legal proceedings from start to finish is high, and therefore financially vulnerable people (those most in need of the law’s protection) are either unable to access the law to seek redress for wrongs done to them, or are unable to afford the law’s protection when it is used against them.

For this reason, ALL for Cameroon is dedicated to providing free information, advice, and legal representation to those who are unable to otherwise afford it. ALL for Cameroon handles a diverse range of cases, many of which involve abuses of power by the strong against the weak.

I emailed Lib Dem Voice think they had made a mistake, but this really is the group the Chief Whip has gone to work for.

By the time you read this he will be back from Africa. But by then I shall have found the combination to open the safe, drunk his Auld Johnston (that most prized of Highland malts) and copied chunks out of the Black Book.